Eating Disorders: Anorexia Nervosa

Do you know the killer that claims many lives of all ages, genders, and backgrounds? It is not an animal or creature lurking in your bushes, but a mirror you look in daily. If you have not guessed it, it is an eating disorder. They not only affect your eating habits, they are also mental illnesses which is why they are able to affect a wide range of people with different characteristics and living conditions, they have the ability to affect you mentally, physically, emotionally, and socially. There are many different types of eating disorders such as Anorexia Nervosa or Bulimia Nervosa which are among the most common, despite the 200,000 cases in the US there are treatments, helplines, and many other resources to help people suffering from …show more content…
They usually happen to people with many biological, psychological, and/or environmental abnormalities such as an irregular hormone balance, poor self- esteem, or a negative body image. People's careers, their surrounding society, or families are one of the top contributing factors as well. Although some may not always realize little things and comments go a long way, negative ones just as much as the positive, A mother may warn her daughter that she's gaining too much weight, or her size is larger then what it should be, a model’s agent may constantly remind her of her next shoot and how she can’t weigh more than a certain number and other various situations people are always put in. Some people may have a more serious case then others leading to hospitalization and constant care, others don’t need constant supervision and don’t need as much medicine or medical help. People have died from this mental disease or it has had serious consequences. People begin to develop bone diseases, or they begin to experience hormonal imbalances to name a few. “Methods and tactics to help improve the health and mental state of eating …show more content…
People with anorexia generally restrict the number of calories and the types of food they eat. Some people with the disorder also exercise compulsively, purge via vomiting and laxatives, and/or binge eat. “Anorexia is a huge obsession with one’s appearance and people although after already being so underweight it becomes unhealthy and possibly fatal still see themselves as fat unable to see anything different” (Li). Some choose different methods of coping with their “excess fat”, they may choose to constantly work out and try to keep off the fat and others don’t allow themselves to receive nutrition at all and induce vomiting or consume large amounts of laxatives to expel all food. When people with this disorder decide to start rejecting the consumption of food or excessively expel it they begin to harm their body in various ways. The methods to identify if you or someone you know has this disorder are chronic restrictive eating or dieting beyond the norm, rapidly losing weight or being significantly underweight and emaciated, obsession with calories and fat contents of food, engaging in ritualistic eating patterns, such as cutting food into tiny pieces, eating alone, and/or hiding food, amenorrhea (an abnormal

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